“Really?” Stewart says, “We’re going after O’Reilly for exaggerating being in a war zone? I don’t know if you watch his program. Misrepresenting ‘The Zone’ he is in is kind of his hook.” Stewart goes on to say that both Mother Jones –– who wrote the original O’Reilly report –– and those following up on the story are “putting in a tremendous amount of work to say the emperor has no clothes, when the emperor has spent like the last 20 years going, ‘Look at my dick! I’m naked!'”

Stewart’s backhanded defense here echoes the relatively balanced stance he took earlier when addressing the Brian Williams controversy. Stewart both called Williams out and pointed to the hypocrisy in persecuting him. “Finally!” Stewart said, “Someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War.”

But while Stewart might be taking similar approaches to both Williams and O’Reilly, the two men couldn’t be any different under fire. Williams took full responsibility for his actions and put himself on a leave of absence. O’Reilly, however, is on record threatening a New York Times reporter covering his story. It will be interesting to see him try to run that through the No Spin Zone.